After the tantalising promise of some warmer weather a couple of weeks ago, this week George contemplated his long sleeve top but soon came to his senses, Bonnie made a successful and noisy return to parkrun and I had to get out my invisible aerosol foam spray for the start line for the second week running!
But what a great weekend of running it turned out to be. Not only was our parkrun happening but lots more were starting off at 9 a.m nationally and and at various times globally. Not only that we had the Great Manchester Games taking place in Manchester, which were fantastic. To hear the thunder of those athletes running along the track on Deansgate is really exciting and something not to be missed. This was followed, of course, by the Great Manchester Run on Sunday through the streets of Manchester, Old Trafford and Trafford Park. It was fantastic to see so many of you taking part.
Saturday was surprisingly dry under foot considering the heavy rain we had had in the week with only a little bit of mud reported near three bears cottage. We also had another good turnout with old, new and visiting parkrunners. There were 260 runners, of whom 38 were first timers and 47 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 16 different athletics clubs took part.
We were testing out our some of our new equipment this week kindly supplied to us by parkrun HQ. Luckily we have a new timer as one of the ones we used on Saturday packed up just after the run! You might have noticed I was trying out a "new" volunteering position last week, basically funnel managing at the scanners. I have to say I really enjoyed it! If you fancy doing that, or any other role, just give us a shout - all you need is good shouting skills to keep everyone moving along together with lots of arm waving to point everyone in the right direction! We now have four barcode scanners so please use any one of these. Once you've received your finish token it doesn't matter what order we scan you so no need to stand queueing, in fact feel free to queue jump at this point!
Annie worked her magic this week to bring you your results in a speedy time (for some reason when I try to load the scanners and timers into the laptop I just can't get it right but you can guarantee the minute George gets his hands on the laptop it works first time - ggrrr!)
Two eventful things happened after the run this week: someone received their results in Danish (nothing to do with us!) and we had a light hearted complaint about the quality of the air in the woods! We'll make sure we put the air conditioning on this Saturday!
This weeks speedy Gonzalez(es?!) are:
Male placings:
Billy MCCARTNEY (VM35-39) of Salford Harriers and AC, was first over the line in 17:39 - first time in 2 appearances.
An unknown runner was second.
Chris BROWN (VM35-39) (Unattached) was third over the line in 18:13.
Female placings:
Laura NASH (SW25-29) of Salford Harriers and AC, was first (13th overall) over the line in 20:08 - 4th time in 5 appearances.
Victoria SMITH (SW30-34) of Belle Vue Racers, was second (28th overall) over the line in 21:24.
Amelia BRATT (JW11-14) of Salford Harriers and AC, was third (29th overall) over the line in 21:25 - was first to finish once before.
Gold, Silver and bronze positions in the points table so far are as follows:
Men:
Mark BIRCHALL (Swinton RC) 858 pts
George BATE (Fell Ponies) 786 pts
Mark CLEWARTH (Unattached) 756 pts.
Ladies:
Theresa SHAW (Salford Metropolitan AC) 867 pts.
Emily BIRCHALL (Unattached) 781 pts.
Jessica BIRCHALL (Unattached) 760 pts.
Simon Pack completed his 50th run and Lauren Fairhurst completed her 10th run. You'll be able to order your t-shirts very soon!
Our runner of the month is Ian Taylor. Ian has been a previous nomination and can now choose some lovely new training shoes courtesy of Sweatshop, one of our sponsors. Please read Ian's comments on our Facebook page about how he started running and how much he enjoys being part of parkrun. If you'd like to nominate someone please drop us an email to the usual address, it's your parkrun after all.
And finally, if you would like to write a run report for us, be it long or short, please let us know.
P.S. Don't forget your barcode #dfyb
Carol